Stress and illness
Introduction
Stress is the feeling of a physical and emotional tension from a specific thought or event that makes one feel frustrated or nervous. Still, with one approach to human life, the body responds to anything that requires attention and action. As humans, we encounter a lot through our lifetime, which sometimes leads us to pressure or demand to force one to lean on one side of the scenario. There are types of stress and their causes that a person should understand since they have different impacts and consequences to one’s life; for instance, there are long-term and short-term. These stress types have got their disorders to human beings such as heart attack, anxiety, depression, and immune system disturbance.
Q1. Effects of trauma
Trauma responds to a deeply disturbing or distressing event that overwhelms a person able to cope or feel the full range of experience and emotions in their lives. It can also be an emotional response to a frightening event experienced in life, like an accident or rape case. The various types of trauma that an individual needs to know and understand how to cope with them are acute trauma and chronic trauma. The acute trauma results from a single stressful and dangerous event during the chronic result from a prolonged and repeated exposure to highly stressful events, e.g., domestic violence.
It has its effects on human life in terms of short term and long term period like the small ‘t’ trauma is the circumstances where one’s body safety or experience is not threatened; these are such trauma that one can quickly recover the memories. We also have the massive ‘T’ trauma, which is the extraordinary experience that brings about severe distress and helplessness in one’s life. These explain how individuals feel differently or believe that they are different from others; for instance, a person is also likely to seek support from the other person who is of more similar trauma to avoid shame. Emotional trauma can cause long-lasting brain changes that lead to addiction or depression in human life; these can affect one’s life by taking a significant amount of time to get over the memories, which can lead to a weighty and challenging duty in one’s life to be able to cope with the life challenges during or at a particular time. The intrusive thoughts and memories associated with trauma can easily trigger strong emotional and behavioral reactions to personal life. For instance, the inadvertently retraumatized person due to clinical practices or a program may have a surge of intrusive thoughts of the past, making it difficult for them to discern what is happening now versus what had happened. Another strong effect is mental health problems such as post-traumatic disorder (PTSD) that can cause a lot of danger in one’s life. Lastly, the effect on life relationships can destroy a significant impact on the family, workplace, and even social since the victims will try to avoid their friends or even colleagues at work because of the trauma.
Q2. Definition of epigenetics and how stress plays its role.
Study of how DNA expression can be changed without changing the structure of DNA itself. And the DNA modification that do not change the DNA pattern, affecting the gene activity but the change on how one’s body can read the DNA sequence. These epigenetic changes can affect the gene expression to either turn or off in different ways; for instance, in the histone modification, the DNA wraps around the proteins; thus, some genes are wrapped around the histone while others are not. And in the DNA methylation where the genes work by adding a chemical group to DNA where it blocks the proteins that attach to DNA to read the gene. Lastly, in the non-coding DNA, RNA is used to make coding and non-coding, whereby the coding RNA is used to make proteins.
Q3.The event history that could have caused stress-related changes to next generation
It changes as one age both as aging and normal development in response to the behavior and environment; for example, in the epigenetics development, all the cells act and look different but have the same genes, meaning that as one grows, the epigenetic effect will help to determine the function of an enclosure will have. Another change is the epigenetic and the age where epigenetic change occurs throughout a person’s life; thus, childhood to adulthood will not be the same from birth. Lastly, the epigenetic and health whereby an individual’s health can change in different ways; for instance, in an infection, the germs can weaken and affect the immune system. According to the study, chronic exposure to stress hormone causes modification to DNA in mice’s brains, leading to changes in the gene expression; therefore, chronic stress can affect human behavior either by treating depression or causing disorder. During a stressful situation, the human body produces steroid hormones called glucocorticoids that affect many systems in the body, e.g., the brain and kidneys. These hormones can also affect the HPA axis through epigenetic modification changes to DNA that do not alter the sequence but influence the gene expression. It has been believed that pregnant women in stressful situations pass this experience to their children. Also, prolonged exposure to stress can cause epigenetic changes in a human being. The chemical modification on DNA plays an n essential role in normal brain function, and abnormal DNA modification has been linked to many disorders. The male mice who experienced stress in their early lives also passed this to their grand pups, where it’s most likely to show depression or anxiety symptoms even if there are brought up in a nurturing environment.
According to the holocaust, during the Second World War, the Jewish men and women who had been interned in Nazi camps had to experience torture. The research carried out shows that the children who were known to have an increased likelihood of stress disorders compared to the Jewish families staying outside Europe during the war. Although our genes are modified by the environment all the time through chemical tags that attach themselves to our DNA, a recent analysis shows that some of the tags might have been passed to generations. Thus, our environment could influence our children’s health. For example, girls born to Dutch women who were pregnant during the drought famine at the end of the Second World War had an above-average risk of developing schizophrenia.
In comparison, the men who smoked before the puberty stage of life fathered heavier sons than those who smoked after the stage. It could be in a stress-related gene that shapes how we cope with our environment; the epigenetic tags had the same correlation, which was not found in any control group and their children. Therefore stress effects result in the epigenetic changes in both exposed children and their parents and their offspring in humans. On the depression and anxiety, children experienced such mainly when the parents were not in a position to provide food for them during famine period and perhaps not having adequate nutrition for the body growth, which could lead to obesity due to the shortage of food, that once available they could eat abnormally. Health and shelter were another taboo since they could not find proper protection for their safety lives due to the war that could move them from time to time and at times when there were no even health centers even if one is unwell. The disorder that the children experienced were mental disorder during the Second World War thus was mostly when their parents were involved in the battle to fight for their lives and some end up dying or even tortured, these scenes could not easily rub themselves in their brain.
The stress-related changes to the next generation affected the infants, particularly those born with mothers who had PSTD compared to infants born with mothers with no PSTD following their direct exposure to the collapse of the world trade center on 9/11 during pregnancy. The effect of parental PTSD on successful offspring aging will be evident even when the offspring themselves do not suffer from probable PTSD or control their anxiety symptoms.
Q4. Importance of knowing how children will be affected by their parent’s trauma.
It’s vital to know the trauma that a child can go through due to the parents’ trauma experienced in the past since these will help reduce the depression and stress in a child and be able to control and manage them. Parents should listen to their children and care for their concerns and feelings about the same scenario that they went through so that it could be easy to identify their views about the same. They should also share what happened to them appropriately so that the child will understand according to their understanding level without frightening details by using polite language that they understand better. Also, talking to a child about how people may react to distress and telling them their feelings are expected in these circumstances and reassure them that they will gradually feel better. If parents keep accurate information from them, they will fill the blanks using imaginations and their knowledge and experience.
Q5. current events are producing similar effects to future generations.
The current events in the world, such as COVID 19, could produce similar effects to the human way of living since the virus has contributed to many changes to the way of living. For instance, the countries’ lockdown and the measures, prolonged anxiety, and fear brought on by significant stressors, like the novel coronavirus. The measures put in the countries have resulted in stressful life since they limit humans to their usual way of life, e.g., having fun together and socializing, going to school, and even to their places of work. Therefore the virus has stigmatized people so that it has caused a lot of damage to one’s health and takes a toll on individual mental health, which may also have a lasting impact on a man’s sperm composition that could affect even his offspring. One of the measures contributing to emotional and physical stress is learning online since they tend now to have opportunities to expose themselves to dangerous and harmful acts. Another measure that has also contributed to disorder to human life is working from home; these have enhanced depression and anxiety since it could not suit everyone regardless of the rules. Most of the people had to be well equipped with the digital way of life. Therefore all these events could affect the future generation since the trauma will remain. The gene of the trauma will be in the future children since their parents going under the scenario will have to contribute to the coming generation.
In conclusion
That majorly, stress enhances a negative impact on one’s life compared to the positive side effects. And that it’s these negative impacts can cause a harmful and dangerous response to our body both emotionally, mentally, and physically. Therefore one needs to know and understand the effects, consequences, results, and findings that stress and trauma can cause to one’s life.